It’s not often I review other software based brewing tools, but I was recently contacted by Enrico Mollica about a web based program called Hop Control that includes a large well thought out hop database as well as some innovative analysis tools that will appeal to hop heads. I’m currently working with them to bring some of these features into a future version of BeerSmith, but I wanted to highlight their system for those interested in doing more detailed hop analysis today.
Hop Control Overview
Hop Control is a web-based software is the result of over 10 years of research performed by Italian engineers Enrico and Giulio Mollica. The algorithms behind this software was validated using experimental activities performed in collaboration with partner Italian brewery Birrificio Dada.
Hop Control is divided into two major pieces. The first is a database of currently over 300 hop varieties compiled from industry averages. This includes detailed aroma oil content as well as sensory data for each variety. The second piece lets you enter basic recipe data and do a study of the hop profile for the finished beer. I’ll discuss both in a bit of detail below:
Hop Control Database and Comparison Tool
Hop Control currently has some 300 hop varieties in the database but plan to increase that to over 400 in 2025. The data is compiled from industry averages but includes not only the typical alpha/beta acids but also full aroma oil content and sensory data which can be displayed in a color spider chart. While some of this data is available from individual suppliers, having it all in one place at your fingertips is a huge plus.
The hop finder lets you find hops by alpha, beta, and co-humulone percentage, and you can also filter by aromatic profile which can really help you find a desirable hop aroma quickly. Clicking on any variety brings up the sensory spider chart, description and technical data including total oils.
A hop comparison tool lets you compare up to six hop varieties in the database and display their sensory data on an overlayed spider chart along with critical hop data side by side. This can help you answer questions like “What’s the difference between using Fuggles or East Kent Goldings in my brew” or “How do these three hop varieties stack up.”
Hop Studies
In addition to the hop database, you can create a “hop study” which is a mini hop recipe to analyze the basic hop character and content for a given hopping schedule. Setting up the study involves entering basic volume, BJCP style, boil density and gravity data along with your hop schedule. Ths hop schedule includes variety, boil time, hop type as well as dry or whirlpool hops.
Once you enter your recipe and hop data, the tool calculates and displays the following for the overall recipe:
- A Spider Chart: for the calculated hop aroma as well as the BJCP style hop aroma. To create this diagram, the algorithm performs a combination of the contents of several essential oils (the effect of thiols, when applicable, is included) contained in the hop additions chosen by the user, taking into account the effect of time, temperature and hop type.
- Bitterness in International Bitterness Untis (IBU before fermentation).
- Overall Bitterness Ratio: (BU/OG ratio) for the beer.
- Overall Humulene/Caryophillene (H/C ratio)
- Total Hoppy Level (THL): which is a macroscopic indicator of the overall hoppy level of the beer (according to the definition provided in Machado’s technical paper)
- Beta to Alpha Ratio: (BA/AA %)
- Bitter Quality Index: this a brand new hop metric created by the developer of HOP CONTROL that provides an estimation of the quality of the bittering (mainly related, as literature suggests, to the overall co-humulone content).
- Main essential oil contents: reported in terms of “normalized diagrams”, i.e. for each essential oil the ratio between its quanity and its perception threshold is graphed. The reported main essential oils are myrcene, humulene, caryophyllene, farnesene, linalool and geraniol
While some of these, like IBUs and bitterness ratio are available in most beer recipe programs, the overal aroma oil content, combined calculated spider chart, quality index and total hoppy level are not widely available in other tools and can be quite useful if you are trying to tweak an IPA to have a particular aroma or bitterness profile.
According to Enrico and Giulio: “The revolutionary methodology of HOP CONTROL allows to optimize the brewing process by starting with a base recipe and immediately identifying the direction for hopping improvement, reducing trial batches and costs. Results from breweries and homebrewers show highly improved hop aroma, increased bitter quality as well as cost reduction.”
After registration at the official website you can test the software with all its functionalities and the complete 300+ hop database, for a free trial period of 7 days. The price for the annual license is less than $20 and includes an unlimited number of saved recipes plus all the new upgrades and hop database extension as new varieties are added. The developers have a discount code BeerSmith_2024 which you can use until 31 December 2024 to get 30% off a pro license.
From my perspective this particular tool would make a good addition for serious brewers looking for more detailed hop selection criteria as well as those who wish to do in-depth analysis on hoppy beers like IPAs. I hope to integrate some of these tools into BeerSmith over time, but Enrico and Giulio have a very nice tool available now for home and pro brewers.